Number Theory: Can BJP edge past BJD in bitter Odisha contest?

The BJD contested its first election in Odisha in alliance with the BJP in 1998. However, it parted ways and contested on its own in 2009.

From talks of a possible alliance, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) are now locked in a bitter contest for 21 parliamentary constituencies (PCs) and 147 assembly constituencies (ACs) in Odisha. What are the factors driving the Odisha contest? Here are five charts which answer this question.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik in Chandikhole, Odisha recently. (ANI Photo)

Can BJP edge past BJD in bitter Odisha contest?

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  The BJP has narrowed its gap vis-à-vis the BJD in Odisha

  The BJD contested its first election in Odisha in alliance with the BJP in 1998. However, it parted ways and contested on its own in 2009 which led to the BJP losing significant ground in the state. This trend continued in the 2014 elections as well. But the BJP turned the tide in 2019 when it managed to close its vote share and seat share gap with the BJD, especially in the Lok Sabha elections. The question is whether this trend continues in the 2024 contest and whether the BJP can surge past the BJD in the state.
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  What led to the BJP’s rise in Odisha?

  The intuitive answer is that it has usurped the Congress’s support base. The Congress and BJP vote shares were 32.7% and 16.9% in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in Odisha. These numbers changed to 13.8% and 38.4% in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, a careful analysis suggests that the actual dynamics in the state could be more complicated. Out of the six PCs that the Congress won in 2009, five were won by the BJD in 2014 and only one by the BJP. Similarly, out of the 27 ACs won by the Congress in 2009, 18 went to the BJD and just two to the BJP in 2014. The BJP won eight PCs in 2019, and out of this, seven were won by the BJD in 2014. The Congress did not win any PCs in 2014. Out of the 23 ACs that the BJP won in 2019, as many as 18 were previously won by the BJD. This suggests that the BJD has taken away the traditional support of the Congress before 2019 and now the BJP is wresting back some of it from the BJP. A region-wise analysis supports this theory. 4 out of the 6 PCs won by the Congress in 2009 came from Western Odisha. The Congress first lost ground to the BJD in this region in 2014. But by 2019, the BJD ceded a lot of space to the BJP in this part of the state. Although, the BJD was able to become the single largest party in the state assembly from Western Odisha in 2019, it had to field the party supremo Naveen Patnaik from an AC in the region for the first time in his political journey to ensure popular support. Patnaik, who won from both Bijepur in Western Odisha and Hinjili in Coastal Odisha, vacated the former to retain his traditional seat. In the 2024 Assembly elections as well, the BJD chief will be contesting from an AC in the western region—Kantabanji—apart from Hinjili, presumably in a bid to strengthen his party’s chances in the entire region.
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  Region-wise seat share in PC/AC for BJD/BJP/Congress in 2009, 2014, 2019
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  Has the BJD regained some of its lost ground after 2019?

  While the BJP saw a significant increase in its seat share and vote share in both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Odisha in 2019, the BJD might have, at least to some extent, been able to rein in the BJP’s rising popularity in the state since. The biggest evidence for this comes from the rural local body polls held in the state in 2022. Out of the 853 Zilla Parishad seats (ZP) in the state, the BJD won 767 in 2022, bringing its ZP seat share to 89.92%. In the previous rural local body election in 2017, the BJD’s ZP seat share stood at 56.07%. In comparison, the BJP’s ZP seat share fell from 35% in 2017 to 4.9% in 2022. Even within Western Odisha, the BJD’s seat share rose from 25.5% to 86.5%, while that of the BJP fell from 61.5% to 9.3%. whether or not the BJP can buck this local level trend in a national and state election will be known on June 4.